Growing up amidst the West Texas oil fields, a young Fuller French used to see the town’s motto on car license plates, “The sky’s the limit in Midland.” And that’s how he’s approaching a remarkable music career some two-plus decades in the making with a debut five-song EP that captures a lifetime of pursuing his muse. The piano player/writer/composer and arranger wrote some of these songs while still in his teens, recording them with a remarkable group of musicians, including Latin samba jazz pioneer Laurindo Almeida, Elton John bassist Bob Birch, sax player Don Menza and drummer Rick Latham with contributions from multi-Grammy-winning engineer Al Schmitt, producer Larry Goetz and film composer C.J. Vanston. The five instrumentals that make up French’s debut EP release evoke his own influences growing up, listening to his parents record collection, including Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Stan Getz & Astrud Gilberto’s “The Girl from Ipanema,” and bossa nova great Antonio Carlos Jobim. His mother had him take piano lessons at an early age, and French developed his style after the likes of personal favorites like Burt Bacharach and Elton John, with elements of classic pop composers like Henry Mancini, Riz Ortolani and Serge Gainsborough, along with soundtrack auteurs Jerry Goldsmith, John Barry and Francis Lai. He was equally a fan of Brazilian sambas, French chansons, Hollywood film scores, Broadway musicals and even symphonic art-rock like ELO and Kansas.